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College of Engineering Pune (COEP) Forerunners in Technical Education How it all started Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar, Former Director General CSIR, Govt. of India informed about FABLAB during a meeting with the Hon’ble Minister for Higher and Technical Education on 7 th November 2008 Dr. Mashelkar introduced COEP to Dr. Neil Gershenfeld on Dec 17, 2008 for considering COEP as a possible venue for FAB5. Dr. Mashelkar introduced Vigyan Ashram and Mr. Yogesh Kulakarni on Dec 20, 2008 There were a few meetings between Mr.Yogesh and COEP Mrs. Deepti, MIT, USA visited COEP on March 11, 2009

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College of Engineering Pune (COEP) Forerunners in Technical Education How it all moved April 16, Prof. Neil Gershenfeld sent an e-mail stating the requirements for hosting FAB5 and invited for a teleconference call on April 17, 2009. I am sure Prof. Neil must have been surprised that COEP was eager and teleconference call on April 17 did work at a short notice. April 28, 2009, current fab lab inventory details were rolled out by Prof. Neil. There were several teleconference calls from then on to decide on specifications of all the equipment for Fablab June 24, 2009 orders were still not placed, specifications, quotations were underway

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College of Engineering Pune (COEP) Forerunners in Technical Education Impossible!! Nay Possible … Meanwhile, Dr. Dhananjay Gadre and Mr Yogesh made visits to COEP to see the location where Fablab would be set up. They were both confident that at such a short notice of next one and a half months lab would be set up in COEP rearing to go during the FAB5 conference from August 16-21, 2009 Orders for equipment were placed in July 2009, renovation of god forsaken place started by removing old debris.. By August 3, 2009 when Mrs Sherry arrived, the work was still on … By August 9 th Swine Flu had hit the city of Pune and there were anxious moments

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College of Engineering Pune (COEP) Forerunners in Technical Education We made it By August 15, Independence Day of India We were ready Dream had come True …

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College of Engineering Pune (COEP) Forerunners in Technical Education Naming ceremony : Aug 16, 2009 During preparatory meeting in the Fablab, the two labs were named as Aryabhatta and Bhaskara after the two great mathematician scientists of ancient India. The enclosure outside would be named after C V Raman, a nobel laureate

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College of Engineering Pune (COEP) Forerunners in Technical Education

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College of Engineering Pune (COEP) Forerunners in Technical Education

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College of Engineering Pune (COEP) Forerunners in Technical Education

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College of Engineering Pune (COEP) Forerunners in Technical Education